- Limited entertainment
"Limitless" starts with a contrivance. It is one of those little ideas that are exciting to think about and play around with in your mind but they are usually less amusing and have less potential when stretched and played out like in a feature film; same in this case.
It is said at the beginning that one can only use 20 percent of the brain. Imagine there is a pill that enables you to control all of your brain and sharpen all your senses to an extreme and even increase their functionality.Full concentration, unrestrained receptiveness, supernatural productivity, total control.
Knowledge is power, that's for sure. Unlimited knowledge implies unlimited power.
Bradley Cooper plays Eddie Morra who gains this power in "Limitless" by taking an obscure drug that he got from the equally suspicious brother of his ex-wife after they met on the street coincidentally. He is told it was legal but not yet tested and released. Although Eddie has doubts about that too, he takes the pill anyway because he has nothing to lose. His life is a mess. He is a unorganized, uninspired writer who struggles with getting his new book done and has financial problems. His girlfriend quit.
But when he takes the little capsule it opens the doors to the whole world to him. He is able to learn extremely fast and process any information without effort. In only one day he makes huge progress with his writing but the next morning all the motivation is gone. He needs to get more of that drug but of course it wasnt legal. When he finds the brother of his ex wife dead in his appartment he realizes that he got into trouble, but at least he also gets his hand on quite a big amount of pills.
For a while everything is going famously and he is enjoying his trips doing all the obvious things that one would think of. He learns to play an instrument within days, he seduces women with his boundless intelligence and of course he is going for the money.
What would you do? It is certainly an attractive idea. But the truth is that this premise is rather quickly exhausted. We are shown some of the possibilities that a drug like that would provide but, while it may make you smile for a while, it is a rather pointless sequence. One scene in particular when Eddie gets into a fight is horribly implemented in the movie and is really only there to show us yet another little trick that Eddie can do which is remember films and documentaries about fighting and then effortlessly beat up a handful of attackers. There is no context to this scene and there is also no sequence later in the film where we see him using this again which makes the scene totally irrelevant.
It is fun for a little while but where to go with it from there?
Well, of course there are also unwanted sideeffects that should bring tension to the film. But this aspect is ignored for long time because as long as you take the pills regularly everything is fine.
But since its dealers death it's hard to get further supplies. Eddie supposedly has the last pills around which is of course the reason why there are people chasing him.
After the first act the film sadly reveals itself as a pretty average crime thriller with different interest groups fighting to get that powerful artefact. The effect of the drug rather serves the action than the plot. It is not a very interesting or original continuation from there. The writer of this screenplay definately had no access to such a drug, because in my opinion it is not very well structured.
You probably wonder where Robert DeNiro is. Well, the great Robert De Niro is hardly worth mentioning because he has very little screentime and his character is rather irrelevant to the story.
He is not the villain as I expected him to be. He is just some influential business man who wants to work with the genius Eddie to get control over the market. It is not clear why Eddie thinks he has to team up with the De Niro character in the first place as he can achieve anything he wants on his own.
In fact there is no real or at least no interesting villain. There is a gangster who knows about the drug and blackmails Eddie to get more of it and so he does which doesn't make any sense since he could easily outsmart the dull guy somehow but instead he gives him the only thing that makes him actually dangerous. There is another guy following Eddie and even willing to kill but is actually never trying to actually eliminate Eddie himself.
There are many smaller problems with logic in this film but for spoiler reasons I can't go into further detail. After a short introduction De Niro disappears for a long time just like Eddie's girlfriend is off screen for very long sequences even though she plays or should have played a more important role. The pacing is a little odd and the talent of a fine actor like De Niro is completely wasted. They probably just needed his name to get a wider audience.
To underline the fact that this simple, entertaining idea did not provide enough material to come up with a decent story is the ending of the film that is an absolute downer. It's not like I was totally bored but I realized all of the flaws while watching and couldn't blind out the fact that this movie just isn't very good.
It is one of those films that disappear in the darkest corners of your brain after you have seen it and unless you happen to be on drugs you might not be able to remember it.
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